Keno Information

If you have never seen or played keno before this section gives you all you need to know about the game. We cover the basic game principals as well as the history of the game. After reading this section we suggest taking a look at our How To Play Keno article or having a few games on our Free Keno game to give you an idea of how the game works while not risking any real money.

What is Keno?

Keno is a lottery style casino game. The game consists of a draw of 20 numbers out of a possible 80. The player may pick between 1 and 10 numbers (1 and 15 in some cases). The draw takes place like the lottery with 80 small balls in a sphere with one being drawn at a time. In land based casinos the keno game results are often shown on a big screen.

To enter a game you have to fill in a ticket. These tickets have a grid of all 80 numbers and you must mark an X in the numbers you wish to pick. You then take the ticket to the counter where you will have to pay the entry free. In general the most common ticket price is $1 per game although you will find higher and lower. You win by matching all or some of the numbers according to the pay table.

What is Video Keno?

Video keno is the modern day extension of the original game found in casinos. Similar to video poker and video slots, video keno offers a machine version of keno. Instead of the player having to wait for a draw they can simply press play to initiate a game. This makes for a fast paced game. The keno games found online can all be classed as video keno as they work in the same way as video keno machines.

The biggest difference is the way the numbers are drawn. Instead of actual balls the machines use a RNG or Random Number Generator. These computer chips randomly select 20 numbers for each draw and as each number is drawn the corresponding position on the screen lights up. Keno online works the same way although the RNG is on the casinos gaming server rather than in your computer.

Apart from the obvious advantage of being able to play whenever you like you will also find that in general video keno machines offer better returns. This is because the casino does not need extra staff to run the draws. This keeps costs down which means the returns can be higher.

Why Play?

The house edge on keno is generally quite high similar to that of the slot machine. Still it is one of the few casino games where you can turn a $1 bet into $10,000 or more in a single game. With progressive keno and online keno games the wins can be even higher. While the odds of winning a big prize are quite low there are still big winners so if you like the big bet to win ratio keno is the game for you.

Keno History

Like quite a few casino games the history of keno is not particularly clear. We do know that the game originally came to the United States with Chinese immigrants in the late 1800's. The earliest versions to be documented in the US actually had Chinese characters instead of numbers. In order to make the games appeal more widespread the US casinos changed this to the numbers 1 through 80.

Hundreds of years before the game arrived in the USA the game is said to have been invented during the Han Dynasty between 205 and 187BC. The game was used at the time to fund the war going on at the time and later the bankroll projects such as the great wall. This obviously worked well and governments around the world today still use lotteries to bring in money.